


cold as dawn

by Kingmaking



Series: shake what's left of me loose [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-09 17:07:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18642403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingmaking/pseuds/Kingmaking
Summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of Winterfell, Sansa is left alone.





	1. Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi  
> s08e03 killed me

It’s strange, to once more be alone with her past and the monster that shaped it. Theon had only been back home -- home! -- for a day, and barely even that, but… Why, Theon knew. Theon had seen, and heard, Theon had felt that same blade on his skin; Theon had jumped with her, a fast step, a long drop in ten feet of snow, Theon had wrapped her in his arms until her trembling body had stilled. Theon had meant to bring her to Jon, had meant to right his every wrong, both in the North and beyond the sea. He’d never promised to return, and Sansa had never hoped for it, because she didn’t have _time_ for hope, but...

When she’d recognized him, in the Great Hall, when she’d reconciled her memory of a broken Theon with this new one, dressed like a fighter and keeping his chin high, when she’d heard the way his voice no longer quaked and broke...

It’s not exactly her that he’d pledged to protect, but he was _here_. They could stay home, they could be family, they could help Bran get better -- because he could, he would --, they could heal as surely as Winterfell had, they could wash away the blood and the ashes, the dirt and the hurt. They could face the future together, they could use the past to shape the future, they could do  _so much_ , they could hold one another the way they once had, in that forest, during that horrible escape. Sansa could share with him that which she would never share with Arya, or Jon -- Bran knew anyway, Bran looked at her with eyes older than Winterfell.

She would keep Theon at her side and then maybe, one day, she would learn how to be comfortable around other people, would learn to smile and trust, would learn not to flinch at the sound of barking, shouting. She would learn to leave her door unlocked, would learn how to let herself be touched and held and kissed. She would learn, she would grow, she would heal, and Theon would heal also, and Sansa would look at the both of them and be proud, watch as they changed and grew, rose like flowers in the spring, as they weathered new storms, as they properly returned Winterfell to House Stark.

What actually happens is this: Sansa leaves the crypts, stepping over corpses new and old, to find Jon in the yard, where fires have yet to stop burning. They find Bran, unbothered in his wheelchair, almost like a throne. They find Arya, dagger in hand, a nasty cut on her brow, a smile on her face. Sansa doesn’t ask where the Night King is, doesn’t ask what killed him, not yet. There’s bile in her throat.

They find Theon, a spear through his gut, eyes open and mouth filled with blood. Bringing the wounded in will take hours; carting the dead out might take weeks, and Sansa is already thinking of large graves in the country, graves and pyres. She’s thinking of funeral rites and prayers, thinking of how best to clean and clear Winterfell, how best to procure fresh water for the living, how best to deal with the refugees, now that what they’d feared would never end is over. Graves, pyres, Winterfell, supplies; not Theon. She cannot think about Theon. She cannot even look at him, when they come to clear the dead from the godswood.

They were supposed to be together, they were supposed to heal and grow, they were supposed to help one another forget. Sansa cannot forget on her own; Sansa cannot go on without somebody at her side to remind her that her time as _Lady Bolton_ wasn’t for nothing, that it happened and then _ended_ , as everything surely must. Like this war; like Theon’s life.

Sansa cannot--

But she can, and she must.

She doesn’t know who gave the order -- Jon? --, but Theon’s body is brought in the Great Hall. Him, and the man Jon called Edd. Alongside them are men and women the names and faces of which blur in Sansa’s mind. Dawn is rising, with pink light slowly bathing the hall, but she hasn’t felt this weary in years. Weary, tired, numb, as numb as she felt when news came of Robb and her lady Mother, as numb as she felt on the morning of her wedding night, the second one.

This should be a joyous moment, a moment for glory or singing, a moment for heroes, and yet…

Down near the end of the hall is the young Lady Lyanna, broken and bloody on a table. She appears younger in death, younger with blood on her face, a crushed breastplate. Next to her is her cousin, the exile, the Queen’s man. Daenerys is with him, face paler than Sansa has ever seen it. If she even notices Sansa’s presence, she doesn’t say anything, washing the blood from Ser Jorah’s face. There’s blood on her own face, blood streaked through her silver-gold tresses, blood down her neck and the front of her gown. What happened?

Had Theon lived, maybe Sansa would ask. Had Theon lived, maybe Sansa would take a seat in the hall, or take a cloth and clean the face of wild, brave, dead Lyanna. But Theon is dead, and Sansa is feeling more vulnerable now than she ever did in the crypts, last night, even as the bones of her ancestors rose and came for her. Snarling, almost like barking.

She craves her bed, and silence, and darkness. Maybe she would awake on the morrow and find Winterfell deathless and bloodless; maybe she would awake to find Theon alive, and he would smile, and it wouldn’t matter if he was missing a few teeth.

But there is so much to do already, so many dead to burn and bury, so many living people to feed and reassure, then relocate. More dead than she’d expected, and not as many living. She’d been hoping… It doesn’t matter, what she’d hoped for. What matters is dawn came.

It’s strange, to once more be alone with her past and the monster that shaped it, but the future is crowded something awful. Sansa makes sure Arya is back inside, makes sure the survivors are properly fed, makes sure nobody does anything with Theon’s body until she’s back from her chambers, until she’s ready to… What?

Say goodbye?

She’s never been able to say goodbye to _anybody_ , it’s the whole story. She wouldn’t even know how, if given the chance. There’d been plenty of time, in the day Theon had been here, in the day before the battle, to say _I’m glad you’re here_ or _I missed you_ , and yet she hadn’t. What need for goodbyes? She’d been sure Theon would live. He’d only just returned to her, he wouldn’t leave now.

Maybe she can allow herself just a little bit of sleep, a little bit of darkness, a little bit of mourning. It’s strange, to once more be alone, when just yesterday she’d thought herself almost saved, with a friend at her side, somebody who already knew and would never ask.

It’s strange, to once more feel like a little girl who can never learn. Stupid, scared. Bought and sold, and then freed. She would never be able to properly say _Thank you_.

Sansa doesn’t allow herself to retire just yet, doesn’t allow herself to be weak, instead staying in the Great Hall until every lord and lady is accounted for (alive or dying or dead), until Jon has come and gone, until Bran has left the godswood, until the fires have stopped burning and the scent no longer makes her gag and the sun is shining high above Winterfell, taunting her. Until white-and-red Queen Daenerys kisses her old knight on the forehead and storms out, until Lord Yohn and Lady Alys team up and beg her to rest, or at least sit, or at least eat.

She takes a sip of water.

Eventually, only Theon is left. Sansa approaches him carefully, after ordering the Great Hall cleared. His face has been washed, the blood wiped from his armor, the hair brushed away from his eyes. He could be sleeping, if his face hadn’t already started losing colour. Eyes sunken in, mouth a thin line. Sansa remembers the handsome youth of her childhood, wonders if such a man could ever have resurfaced. Maybe not, and maybe for the best.

She doesn’t touch him. He’s sure to be cold, he _must_ be cold, and Sansa isn’t sure this is a thing she could bear. Cold like her lady Mother, cold like Robb as they hacked at his neck, cold like poor Rickon, bleeding on the ground. Cold like Sansa herself, whenever she thought about the past or future. She doesn’t touch him, but she watches as colour further leaves him, watches as they come and take him away. And she means to say: _Leave him be, let him stay with me_ , but she doesn’t, because he’s dead and cold and cooling and she cannot touch him, and if they let her look at him any longer she might break or scream or plead, or say: This isn’t _fair_ , as if fairness knew the name Stark, as if fairness had ever stepped foot north of the Neck.

Lord Yohn and Lady Alys return; Sansa gives in, to silence and darkness. She makes sure her door is locked, makes sure the windows are shut, makes sure that she cannot hear the singing of steel or the shouting of men, down in the yard, makes sure that she cannot hear the living, because she’s never felt so numb, and she isn’t ready to know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm deceased


	2. Dusk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no

Sansa is startled awake by a dragon’s roar, on what surely must be the fifth, tenth, hundredth day after the battle. And yet… There is smoke in her room, not from the hearth but from the crack in her window, the one that gives on the yard and the carnage below. Smoke in her room, an unusual ache in her bones, a pain behind her eyes, circling her brow like a crown.

A lady does not drag her feet, a lady does not round her shoulders as if bracing for a blow, but Sansa’s composure is weakening, fluttering about like a butterfly, even before she’s made it down from her chambers and into the Great Hall. It’s not five days after the battle, or ten, or a hundred; it’s the very next dusk, and that means she has only slept for six hours, no more. The nobles who survived the battle rise at the sight of her; Sansa wishes she could breeze past the hall, leave the keep, wander out into the godswood, find the spot where Theon was killed and make sure the blood is there, make sure this wasn’t a dream, but instead she gathers Royce and Karstark and Flint around her, listens to Lord Yohn speak of those who fell last night the way he once spoke with her of supplies and horses, accomodations for the Queen and her many people.

The Queen. A dragon’s roar -- Jon. Where is Jon? There’d been such unbound sorrow on Daenerys’s face as she watched over her fallen knight, yesterday. Not yesterday -- barely a few hours ago. Ser Jorah, the young Lady Lyanna, scores and scores and scores others… and Theon.

Theon. Sansa hadn’t even been able to wash his face the way the Queen had washed her knight’s. She couldn’t touch him, could barely even look at him, shocked as she’d been that he’d fallen, that such a thing had been possible. Bran had… Bran had told her something, like a secret, in that detached, older-than-snows voice of his. _It had to happen_ , he’d told her, _it delayed the Night King_. The Night King, dragons and undead, visions of the past and future in her brother’s eyes. When had the world stopped making sense?

The names blur in Sansa’s mind, after some time. And maybe Lord Yohn takes pity on her for, eyes downcast, he says: "They brought the dead into the godswood, my lady. Lady Mormont, her cousin…, the Ironborn are there." Inland, miles from the sea, in the realm of gods that didn’t know them, gods that lived in stone and wind and earth. "King -- _Lord_ \-- Jon was looking for you, a while ago."

A while ago, Sansa had been dreaming of lives over and done, Winterfell under the Boltons, how Theon had grabbed her trembling hand and sent them flying. She goes in search of her brother, the king-lord, finding him on the spot where the Night King was killed. Bran is with him, and Sansa wonders if he even left the godswood, or when he came back. She wonders at the look on his face, why the defeat of his sworn enemy hasn’t cheered him up.

She already knows the answer. The death of Ramsay Bolton hadn’t cheered _her_ up, had it? How insignificant it makes her feel, to be thinking of him on this day, after everything that happened during the night. To be thinking of him, his games and his cruelty, on the day she must bury Theon.

 _This should have been our victory_. A final victory over the Boltons, who’d left the very neck of House Stark -- of Winterfell, of the North -- exposed, who’d left them unprepared to face the dead. Theon was supposed to live, with -- for ? -- her, was meant to stomp on the ashes of his destroyers. Insignificant, to be thinking of Ramsay after this great victory; selfish, to wish Theon had lived for _her_ , to wish there yet lived somebody who could remember the flesh-red of Winterfell under the Boltons. They would remember, together; they would never speak of it, they would heal. It had become Sansa’s favorite idea, as of late -- healing. Mending the world around stitch by stitch. It had been torn asunder in one stroke, that is true, but it could only be mended slowly.

Just like the needlepoint she’d once loved so.

Her brothers greet her, a bit numbly. Sansa wonders if Jon has slept; Sansa wonders if Jon has wept over the people they lost, the way she wishes she could. Crying would be falling apart; crying would be giving in, and if Sansa wept now she wasn’t convinced she would ever stop. If she let herself go, Winterfell surely would go with her, and that is why she had to be strong, and keep her trembling and heartache for the darkness of her chambers.

Jon takes her arm, as if to steady her -- or himself. He says: "We didn’t want to wake you up."

"You should have." They’d wasted more than enough time already. Letters would have to be written and sent, the refugees had to be escorted to new villages, new homes. Something had to be done about Karhold and the Last Hearth, riders should be sent to Deepwood Motte, to summon those who had chosen to hide rather than face the night with House Stark. And food -- they were sure to run out within a few days, with the chaos the dead had caused. The dead… would have to be cleared from the castle and the yard, would have to be interred, would have to be mourned.

Mourning. Theon and his fallen Ironborn. Sansa gathers her courage, and then: "Where’s the Queen?"

"With Missandei," says Jon. There’s something in his voice. Maybe it’s the sleepiness or the hurt, or maybe the future isn’t as silver-gold as he thought it would be. No matter; they can worry about that after they bury the dead. "We should write Lady Yara, prepare Theon and his Ironborn. Send them home."

Theon, killed in the godswood where he and Robb had played as children. Jon also, one assumes; Sansa cannot remember. She can barely even remember the day they left Winterfell, cannot remember the lines of Lord Eddard’s face, her lady Mother’s voice. She was planning to remember with Theon’s help. Should he be sent home? Or should he be kept here, under the watchful eye of the weirwood, in the crypts of past kings and lords of Stark?

Inland, miles from the sea. No, no, no.

"Yara is a queen." _And Theon is home already_ , she means to say, _Theon ought to stay here with us, with me_. But instead: "I can write her, yes. If she can send a ship, we can meet her at Deepwood Motte. We owe the Glovers a visit, one way or another."

Jon gives a sharp nod. Sleepiness, hurt, and something else.

 _Later_. There are enough problems already, including one with that idea, a journey to Deepwood Motte. She cannot leave Winterfell; she doesn’t _want_ to leave Winterfell, not in the care of Jon and his queen, not while so much has to be done. Maybe Lord Yohn could hold down the fort while she dealt with it, but soon he would have to return to Robin in the Vale, and what might happen then? What about the North, indeed.

Like she did last night -- no, this morning, Sansa tightens her furs around her shoulders and faces the dead. She would have to send a raven to Pyke, yes, but also one to Bear Island (she cannot look at Lady Lyanna; when she does, she only sees Arya), one to Blackhaven, one to Grey Glen in the Vale, one for every fallen lord and knight.

Jon leaves and Bran stays, but it’s awfully easy to pretend he isn’t there. Theon is on a stretcher, two inches above the snow. Sansa does her best to sit down, letting her skirt and her cloak pool around her. She takes the good look she couldn’t allow herself, yesterday -- this morning, this _morning_ , right after dawn. Why does it feel like a lifetime ago? Why does she feel in danger, even now that Winterfell is safe? Broken, but safe.

Broken, but safe. It would heal. Sansa would heal. Theon…

Theon is white, now. She wishes she’d touched his cheek, this morning, before warmth properly left him; she wishes she’d wrapped him in one last hug, before the battle, before he wheeled Bran into the godswood and she hid in the crypts. She wishes… It doesn’t matter, what she wishes for. Theon’s eyes are closed, and he wishes for nothing, safe maybe for the sea.

He’s cold, now, terribly so, but Sansa presses her palm to his cheek anyway, brushing her fingers over his jawline, his cheekbone. She gently smoothes the hair at his temple, wonders if the creeping grey she can make out here and there is a trick of the light, or a last _gift_ from Ramsay. A man of his age shouldn’t have grey hair; a man of his age shouldn’t have spent years in captivity. A man of his age shouldn’t be dead.

"I’m sorry," Sansa whispers, and she wonders if Bran can hear this anyway. Most likely; it doesn’t matter. "I’m sorry that you won’t get to live in our new world. I’m sorry they killed you before you could fully heal."  

Theon, as must be expected, says nothing. A single tear comes, but Sansa allows it. She can keep herself from crying or she can keep herself from shaking, not both.

"I wish I knew what you’d want. The sea, or Winterfell?" That was Theon’s problem from the start, wasn’t it? "It would be unfair, to keep you with me. We had each other for a while, we simply didn’t know it. But this is your home, also." The sun is setting. The way it did last night, before the dead came. Barely hours after Theon arrived, barely _hours_. If Sansa had known, if… "It’s not much of a home right now, anyway."

But the godswood is the heart of Winterfell, and if you could forget about the dead and the stretchers, about the blood in the snow, about the unnatural ice that covers everything like mold… It’s been left untouched. And if you could forget about Bran, whose eyes Sansa can feel on the back of her neck, when she laces her fingers with Theon’s, ignoring how the glove is half-empty, ignoring how the hand she kisses is cold and dead, even with the leather of his glove. She would have to make sure nobody removed them, would have to make sure nobody hurt--

What can hurt a dead man?

"You should rest." Bran’s voice, older than snows.

"I’ve rested already." Only a few hours, and she’d thought it would be enough to stop the bleeding. It hadn’t. Then, as if he could do anything if she decided to wheel him back inside the keep herself: "Please get back inside, Bran. Go sit by the fire. Don’t stay here with the dead."

"You’re here with the dead. They were our people, Sansa. Theon was..."

This is more than she can bear, with Bran’s voice as dead as the people around them. She means to kiss Theon’s brow and then she doesn’t, because he’s dead, they killed him, he’s dead, and he’s so very cold already, this is more than she can bear. He should have lived and stayed with her; they should have taught one another the way back to smiles and laughter, the way back--

To what?

She doesn’t know, she doesn’t want to know. What she does know, however, is the way back inside, away from the godswood and the dead, away from Lord Yohn’s pity and the empty tables where the fallen once sat. The way back to her chambers, the way back to silence and darkness. Back to who she was before she caught sight of Theon in the Great Hall, with his men and his smile, his promise. The way back to who she has to be, now that Winterfell has been saved -- stitch by stitch, like needlepoint.

And so, Sansa writes letters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaving this work marked as complete because I don't know how much I'm gonna write for it, but you could reasonably expect a third chapter in which Sansa goes on a fun road trip.


	3. Out to Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd actually written a big chunk of this before 8x04, but I went back and did my best to keep it episode-canon. Picture Sansa's trip happening in between when Dany leaves for Dragonstone and when the raven arrives, I guess?

Deepwood Motte has long since recovered from the Ironborn. And, since it was left untouched by the dead, one would never know the North had just survived a second Long Night. Aside from thicker wool and furs, or a frown here and there, the Glovers endured.

People crowd the dirt road between the gates and the lord’s keep proper, looking upon Sansa with a balanced mix of _What have you seen?_ and _What have you done?_

What she has seen would put to shame Old Nan’s grand tales, the ones she used to spin by the hearth of the Winterfell nursery, a lifetime ago. As for what Sansa has done… A mistake, mayhap, in leaving Winterfell this soon after the battle. But Lord Yohn has stayed behind, and Sansa doesn’t expect to be gone for very long, anyway. That, and Winterfell has yet to let out the breath it’s been holding since the dead breached the Wall, much like Sansa herself. Dealing with the Ironborn dead is like an itch she ached to scratch, after they burned the Northmen, after they burned Daenerys’s people and the stench of cooking flesh made Sansa want to gag throughout dinner. More of a feast, really, with drinking and singing and merrymaking such as she hadn’t seen in a while. A toast in honor of this and that, a roar of drunken laughter every other minute, and silence at the high table.

Yet it wasn’t enough to make her forget the stench. It would seep into her clothing and hair, it would seep into the furs and bedding, it would follow her to Deepwood Motte and up the coast, she was sure of it.

The Ironborn -- Theon’s people -- deserved to be sent out to sea, at least. Once Lady -- _Queen_ \-- Yara had come to recover her brother and brethren, maybe the Northerners would forget her father’s last war, how the west had suffered under his fleet. And once Theon’s body had been put to rest, disappearing over the horizon, then Sansa would hurry back to Winterfell and watch it heal, recover from this one last sacking. Because it _would_ be the last. She had to promise herself that. She would bring her people through a new age, if… circumstances allowed. If they made good time, she’d be safely back in Winterfell before Jon and his queen reached King’s Landing. Then…

How many of the men Jon had taken south with him would return? Sansa had done her best to argue the matter. She wouldn’t let the North suffer more than it already had. She would be the Stark in Winterfell, she would be the leader of the pack, she would allow no more blood to drip on her snows… but Jon was bringing the men south, where it had yet to snow. They would forge ahead through mud, dirt, and the blood left by the wars of before winter. They would carve themselves a future; Sansa would put the past to rest. Most of it, anyway.

Hidden away in her coffers, back in the safety of Winterfell, is a lock of hair, light brown shot with gray. And surely this must be how normal people mourn a friend, this must be how normal people say goodbye to what has been lost. Sansa doesn’t know; Sansa never really had the opportunity to learn, not even after losing her family and home, and then a part of herself.

Two of those are back, now.

What might her lord Father think, if he saw them now? Sansa was never meant to rule. Or at least, Sansa was never meant to rule _Winterfell_ ; it was to be Robb’s seat, or Bran’s if the unthinkable happened, or little Rickon’s if… Rickon’s, if he’d run just a bit faster. Rickon’s, if she’d acted sooner, if Littlefinger hadn’t planned from the start for her to be on her own.

Rickon. He truly wasn’t so little anymore, when his body was recovered, bloody and caked in mud, broken under hooves and feet.

In Lord Glover’s drafty yard, staring down the man and his family, Sansa allows herself the smallest bit of cruelty, saying: "Lady Mormont is dead, my lord. Fallen in battle, while you hid atop your motte."

If the Glovers take offense, they dare not show it. Jon offered to accompany her on his dragon, but what need does she have for scales, fire and wingbeat? She can make a man cower same as his green beast. Justice can be just as frightening as fire. That, and the dragon isn’t truly _his_ , just as Winterfell isn’t truly hers. No matter, if she took care of it for a year; no matter, if _she_ is the Stark in Winterfell, now. In the end, Daenerys had taken both Jon and the dragon south with her; Sansa was glad for half of it. One had been depleting the food stores.

Lord Glover takes a step forward, standing proud amidst his children and grandchildren, to say: "You are welcome here, my lady. Please, be our guest for tonight. Let us speak of Winterfell and the coming wars."

Deepwood Motte has a pleasant scent, of pine needles and woodsmoke. It makes Sansa feel bitter, more than she’d like. More than is wise.

"You must not concern yourself with the wars to come, my lord. Just as Winterfell stood without help from Glover men, King’s Landing will fall. I’ve come not for lamb and mutton, but to deliver the news of the North’s victory on my way to Bear Island." Since when do speeches come to her so easily? Since when does her voice carry so far, since when is her chin so high? Since the Eyrie, mayhap; or since they made her a Lannister, or maybe since they cut her father’s head.

Or since her second wedding, or since they put an end to Littlefinger, but to imagine owing anything, let alone her strength, to men such as Ramsay Snow and Petyr Baelish is despicable. They’d been the broken leg, not the crutch. They’d been a disease, a cancer, not a remedy.

Sansa continues: "A raven could have done it, but the bird couldn’t have let you know that should you need anything, my lord, I vow to provide it. Food, wood, anything to help you through winter, I vow to provide it. But do not presume to keep the friendship of House Stark, not until I decide to forgive your cowardice. I do not blame you for your fear, Lord Glover. I blame you for letting fear get the better of you. Had Winterfell been taken, your keep would have fallen within the week. Your keep, your children, your people, you would be dead if not for my family. You would be dead if not for the army that fought to protect our homeland, you would be dead if not for a Greyjoy."

And _that_ would put any Northerner to shame, Sansa knows.

What need for scales, fire and wingbeat? Lord Glover has gone red in the face, and yet he bows. And when Sansa leaves Deepwood Motte, it’s with his granddaughter riding alongside her, a little thing of Rickon’s would-have-been age, the one in whose hand Glover refused to put a spear.

The journey to Deepwood Motte itself was a bit slower than she would have liked, mostly because a large column of refugees was following her party, but they make good time westward for the shore, reaching the beach just as the sun prepares to set. Sansa welcomes the sight of Queen Yara’s fleet, just like she welcomed the silence, after parting from the refugees. Most of them widows and orphans, and they behaved like Sansa herself; venturing forth with care, remembering what had been lost. The price of victory over the dead wouldn’t soon be forgotten.

Jon rode -- no, Jon _flew_ \-- further north, himself, to put the Last Hearth back in working order, to seat the Greatjon’s last daughter as lady, and do the same in Karhold with Lady Alys. The last Umber and the last Karstark, but Sansa was also the last of her family, once. And they returned -- for better or worse, they returned. It’d been done in a hurry, because Jon and the dragon both had to follow Daenerys south, but to Karstark and Umber, Sansa had made that same promise: she would provide. She would make it work; she would make it be _alright_.

Alright. A word to reassure children; a word to carry oneself surely through stormy days. Sansa couldn’t remember the last time she’d been _alright_.

She carefully secures her gloves at her belt, walking the short distance between her party and Yara Greyjoy’s, the Glover child at her side. They bring down the casket in which they placed Theon, and the ones in which they placed his men. Sansa wishes she wouldn’t, but Yara opens Theon’s, and only then does she finally speak.

"Was it quick, do you know?"

"I’ve been told it was, yes." Such a strange woman Yara is, with her windswept hair and her leathers, with the knives at her belt, the scars on her face. Arya would like her; Sansa cannot bring herself to like much of anything, as of late. "It’s a debt we can never repay. I… I don’t think I can ever forget. You must know, your brother helped me--"

Sansa had almost forgotten what it’s like, to be interrupted. Yara Greyjoy does, saying: "I know what he did for you. And I know what he did to your family, and for your family. And I’m grateful that you brought him back to me. To sea."

Sansa gives a sharp nod. This isn’t the Great Hall of Winterfell, this isn’t King’s Landing or the Eyrie, this isn’t some belligerent lord she must sway to her cause. Windswept Queen Yara, with her leathers and her knives, gives Sansa her arm to grab, like brothers in arms. Sansa doesn’t like to be touched, Sansa doesn’t like to be held, but this is Theon’s sister. Together, slowly, they walk down the rocky path, to a rowboat that Yara’s men drag over the hostile water, to her ship. They use ropes to bring up the rowboat, and more ropes to bring up the wooden boxes, and Sansa doesn’t notice how unsteady her feet are until they start moving. This isn’t her first time on a boat, but it’s the first time surrounded by Ironborn living and dead, with a handful of Stark men and Erena Glover for company.

Yara observes her for a moment, then: "You didn’t have to come with us. Not for this part, at least."

But she did. If she couldn’t bury Theon in the crypt under Winterfell, then she would follow him out to sea, and know where exactly his body hit the waves. Would it go smoothly under the water, or crash like a storm? Sansa watches the Ironborn prepare the fallen, removing the lid from every casket, filling them with stones and weapons. No praying, no stones over the eyes. If they weren’t preparing to bury the Queen’s brother, Sansa reckons they might jest, celebrate the living, drink and boast.

"Would you rather we’d pushed them from the shore?" Sansa wonders; Yara smiles, just a bit.

"No. This is open sea, this is better."

Does she mourn for Theon? She’s had so little time, between the raven and her shoring up at Deepwood Motte. Of course, Lord Glover wasn’t about to invite her and her men to dine under his roof, but Sansa wishes Yara could have been given a proper welcome.

Sansa wishes she’d never sent that raven in the first place, wishes Theon hadn’t fallen in the godswood. How peaceful he’d looked, before they closed the lid, his wound cleaned and hidden under a cloak of Sansa’s own making. She’d made it for Bran, originally, but her brother was never cold anymore, as he’d told her.

They come to a halt somewhere in the middle of the vast open sea, indeed. To Sansa’s distant right, the silhouette of Deepwood Motte. In the south, the rocky shores of Flint’s Finger, barely more than a line on the horizon. And in the north, Bear Island, a line just as thin. But they face west, Sansa and Yara and the Ironborn and little Erena Glover, whose hand is holding not onto a spear but onto the ship’s railing, for dear life.

"Here we are," says Yara. "I reckon we might be halfway between Pyke and Winterfell. Fitting, innit?" Sansa doesn’t know about that. Yara continues: "My people won’t forget the part Theon played in stopping the dead. He did it for your family, my lady. For you. I’d never heard my brother speak this highly of a woman before, let alone what I pictured to be a scared little girl. But you’re no little girl."

Sansa wishes she had more to say, but then: "There’s hardly a single _little girl_ left in the North. Not after the wars." Yara gives a sharp nod. Looking at her from this side, looking at her nose and her jaw, at the curve of her mouth, Sansa could almost…

The Ironborn shout her name. "The men are ready, lady. Are you?"

They lower every casket into the hungry waters, one by one, with more care than she thought men such as them capable of, until Sansa could swear the ship is swaying in the wind, until only Theon is left of the Ironborn. The others are floating away, some already overtaken by wave and wind, sinking at the bottom of the sea, to feed the fish and feast in the hall of a god Sansa doesn’t know.

"I knew every single one." Sansa knows this is as close as she can ever get to Yara’s sorrow, the mourning under her rough leathers, the lines of her sun-tanned face. "It’s a brave death, a good death."

"I wish there’d been time enough for me to learn who they were," Sansa begins, but then Yara, with a bright grin: "The lot of them were drunken sons of whores, my lady, but they fought like storms, didn’t they?" A shocked gasp escapes little Erena Glover, standing further down the bridge, by the smallest casket, the one they won’t be launching out to sea. "Come, now. Let us send Theon home."

Hidden in Sansa’s coffers is a lock of Theon’s hair; hidden in Sansa’s pocket is the pin that once clasped her own cloak, the head of a wolf, delicately wrought in silver. A fine ornament, and it does stick out as such, but if Yara notices Sansa carefully tucking it over Theon’s heart, she doesn’t say anything. She couldn’t touch him, when they found him and brought him to her, when they put his body in the box and they departed for Deepwood Motte, but now that he’s about to be lost forever? Sansa brushes the hair away from his face, Sansa presses her palm to where she knows the wound is, the fatal blow, as if she could somehow…

 _Do it now_ , she orders, head to wounded heart, _Do it now_.

Sansa has time only to blink once, maybe twice, before the waves swallow Theon's casket entirely, before he goes to his god and leaves her behind. A part of her wishes to break open, be heard and seen, a part of her wishes to scream and destroy what she’s been left with, what little she’s been left with, wishes to scratch knuckles on hard stone, to feel and be felt. Instead, Sansa whispers a nigh-silent goodbye, makes sure the screams do not escape past her throat, makes sure the bitter tears cannot tumble out.

She turns away from the sea at the same time Yara does. The Queen’s men -- so many queens -- waste no time in steering the ship north, toward Bear Island, toward what little they can make out. Erena Glover, standing by the smallest casket, moves aside when they approach.

Yara doesn’t open this one, but she must know. She must know, because then: "I’m told Lady Mormont killed a giant wight. A wight giant? Impressive, if true."

"It killed her, but she also killed it. She defended the gates. Thirteen, and she defended the gates of Winterfell." The last of House Mormont, who deserved to rest on the island of her birth, the way her mother never would. Her cousin had burned outside the gates of Winterfell, but he was Queen Daenerys’s man, and thus maybe his true home was at her side, not on Bear Island. "I thank you, Queen Yara, for accepting to ferry us."

"There and back, one must hope. Lest you wish to become a pig farmer."

There and back, indeed, with time enough to spare. House Mormont’s barrow is empty, with so many killed away from home, but the old maester who brought Lady Lyanna into the world now welcomes her body home. He’s the very picture of respect, when it comes to Yara and the Ironborn, and in exchange Sansa does her best not to notice his tears, when they bury the little coffin. It makes Sansa think of Rickon; it makes Sansa tremble, just a bit, but surely it must be the wind. It’s stronger here than in Winterfell, a northern wind that makes her wish for a thicker cloak, more furs.

It’s just the wind.

"I never thought I’d step foot on Bear Island without a raiding party," says Yara, as the ship pushes away from the windy shore. Another gasp from Erena, which Sansa ignores. "We live in a strange world, don’t we? Our fathers had a mad king, we have a mad queen."

 _Mayhap we have more than one_ , Sansa muses, but it would be a mistake to share this with Yara, even after they just sent Theon out to sea together. Instead: "And like our fathers, we’re dealing with it."

Once more, Yara takes her arm. Sansa wishes she never had to send the raven bearing word of Theon’s death, but mayhap there could be more ravens, mayhap she could make a new friend. But only after the war, only after the queens had been dealt with, only after she knew for sure what sort of place she would have in the world, in Winterfell. The Stark in Winterfell and the Greyjoy on Pyke.

Like Sansa’d hoped, she’s back in Winterfell in time for the first raven from Jon or Queen Daenerys, but… it’s not what they expected. It announces the death of a dragon, the wrecking of a fleet, the capture of Daenerys’s handmaiden. A dragon -- Jon’s beast, the green one -- killed in the blink of an eye, which is sure to lengthen the war and embolden Cersei, or maybe worse.

A dragon killed, Jon gone with every man and boy in fighting shape, Arya missing… And Bran his usual self, Bran his new self, the boy-man that isn’t really her brother, not anymore. But he stays close anyway, as they prepare Winterfell for the coming storms, and she is grateful for that.

They heal as one, Sansa and Winterfell. Inland, miles from the sea, but with help from a drowned boy with a wolf pin on his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided that if Robett Glover must have a random made-up granddaughter, let it be Erena
> 
> also i'm using the show's bad takes on travel distance

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
